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Psychiatric Problems Common in Siblings of People with Autism
Psychiatric problems crop up more than twice as often in families that include a child with autism as in the general population. That’s the upshot of the most sweeping study to date of mental health in siblings of children with autism. The findings suggest that clinicians should look...
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Blurred Lines – In Support of a Broader Interdisciplinary Model
It’s 6:00 PM on a Tuesday and Lindsey is taking her kids to swim practice. In the back seat they’re talking excitedly about whatever the new game is while struggling to share an iPad, worn out from the day of school but excited for the evening ahead. Meanwhile, Lindsey is thinking about RSVPs...
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Growth Hormone Treatment Improves Social Impairments in Patients with Genetic Disorder Known to Cause Autism
A growth hormone can significantly improve the social impairment associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in patients with a related genetic syndrome, according to a pilot study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published today on Pub Med, a public database of...
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The Daniel Jordan Fiddle Foundation Announces Groundbreaking Initiatives at Yale School of Medicine and University of Miami CARD
The Daniel Jordan Fiddle Foundation (DJFF), the nation’s first not-for-profit organization to focus exclusively on adults living with autism, has launched two groundbreaking initiatives designed to enrich the lives of autistic individuals throughout their lifespan. With endowment gifts of...
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Evaluating the Ability of Learners with Autism to Work in Small Groups
Learners with autism do well with one on one instruction, and this is widely known. However, the provision of one-to-one instruction on a long-term basis is not efficient or realistic. Funding streams, particularly in adulthood, do not support this level of staffing. Furthermore, the ability to...
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Changes in Scores of Genes Contribute to Autism Risk
Small differences in as many as a thousand genes contribute to risk for autism, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC), and published today in the journal Nature. The new study examined data on several types of rare, genetic differences in...
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It Takes Brains to Solve Autism
If you have autism or are a family member of someone with autism, you now have a unique opportunity to contribute to important research that can lead to better understanding and treatment of autism. Last year, the Simons Foundation and Autism Speaks announced the establishment and funding of a new...
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The Future of Autism Genetics Should Learn From Its Past
Last month in November of 2014, my colleagues and I published two large studies that sequenced the genes or exomes of thousands of families with a history of autism1,2. These studies identified several dozen “high-confidence” autism genes that show spontaneous, harmful mutations in multiple...
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Understanding Treatment Effect Scores in Behavioral Therapy Research
Current prevalence estimates released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) suggest that one in 68 children in the United States may have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (CDC MMWR, 2014). The core impairments that characterize autism - social and communicative functioning and the presence of...
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Autism and Science: A View from Across the Neural Divide
I am writing this because I am in the somewhat unusual position of not only being on the autism spectrum and fairly involved in the autism community, but also of coming from a scientific background, even if not in the field of autism (I am a retired electronics engineer with degrees in physics,...
